Few philosophers have left a legacy like that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He has been credited not only with inventing the differential calculus, but also with anticipating the basic ideas of modern logic, information science, and fractal geometry. He made important contributions to such diverse fields as jurisprudence, geology and etymology, while sketching designs for calculating machines, wind pumps, and submarines. But the common presentation of his philosophy as a kind of unworldly idealism is at odds with all this bustling (...) practical activity. In this book Richard. T. W. Arthur offers a fresh reading of Leibniz’s philosophy, clearly situating it in its scientific, political and theological contexts. He argues that Leibniz aimed to provide an improved foundation for the mechanical philosophy based on a new kind of universal language. His contributions to natural philosophy are an integral part of this programme, which his metaphysics, dynamics and organic philosophy were designed to support. Rather than denying that substances really exist in space and time, as the idealist reading proposes, Leibniz sought to provide a deeper understanding of substance and body, and a correct understanding of space as an order of situations and time as an order of successive things. This lively and approachable book will appeal to students of philosophy, as well as anyone seeking a stimulating introduction to Leibniz's thought and its continuing relevance. (shrink)

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Since the publication of the interpretations of Leibniz's metaphysics by Bertrand Russell and Louis Couturat early in this century, his philosophy has been largely understood in the light of the doctrine of the complete concept of the individual. It is striking that this doctrine does not appear in any work Leibniz published in his lifetime. Instead, in his published works, he stresses the debt which his metaphysics owes to dynamics, the science of motion. This claim has been little understood and (...) largely discounted by his interpreters. ;In this work, I attempt to shed light on the interrelation between these two areas of Leibniz's thought. This is done in two steps. First, an argument is found for two of the most characteristic theses of Leibnizian metaphysics, viz., the non-interaction of simple substances and the mind-like nature of simple substances, which depends in part on dynamics. Second, I show that, as Leibniz claimed, "force brings the strongest light to bear on our understanding of the true concept of substance." In particular, I show how the concept of force developed in dynamics was adapted by Leibniz to solve problems surrounding the explication of the essence of non-interacting simple substances. The interpretation of the essence of a Leibnizian substance based on the dynamics is shown to be superior to interpretations based on the doctrine of the complete concept of the individual. (shrink)